


Maybe I'll See You

by sheepishwolfy



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/M, Friendship, Humor, Romance, Slowmance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:53:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheepishwolfy/pseuds/sheepishwolfy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While waiting outside Hackett's office, a newly-minted Alliance pilot meets a young marine officer, who offers him an unsolicited pep-talk and a smile, and thus begins a long and storied friendship. Though it takes them both a while to figure it out, that first smile was the exact moment Jeff Moreau fell in love with Elizabeth Shepard.<br/>Slightly AU pre-ME1 to start with, will (eventually) take place majority in ME2. M for language, mild violence and eventually adult situations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Captain Hackett's waiting room was almost obscenely sterile. The walls were a blinding shade of white, the carpet an inoffensive and suspiciously unstained blue-gray, the secretary's desk exactly perpendicular to the rest of the furniture and precisely three feet from theoffice door. Four gray naugahyde chairs stood on either side of the room, shined to a gleaming finish and each with exactly two inches between the arm rests. Pamphlets on conduct and base information were immaculately fanned on low, faux-woodgrain tables at either end of the rows of chairs. The whole of it was bathed in unforgiving fluorescent light.

Jeff hated it.

The room was so cold and aseptic it could have been the waiting room of any hospital in the Systems Alliance. All that was missing was the faint scent of "lemon" industrial cleaner over the even fainter yet somehow ever-present smell of blood. Yet even without that good old hospital smell, and despite his best efforts, Jeff couldn't help but be reminded of the hours spent in waiting rooms too much like this one. Of the scared little boy he'd worked too hard and for too long to ever be again, but couldn't seem to escape. He even had the plaster encasing his left leg below the knee to complete the image. That cast, he thought bitterly, was the physical manifestation of what was probably the end of his overwhelmingly brief career.

For a few glorious days, Jeff had dared to believe, to _really_ believe, he was more than that scared kid. He had graduated at the top of his flight school class without breaking so much as a toe. The sickly kid who everyone assumed was a charity case and would drop out after a few months was a better pilot after a year and a half of training than the half the instructors. It hadn't been an easy eighteen months, an endless stream of waivers and checkups and "are you sures," but it had paid off.

His unmatched skills and work ethic had gotten him a better set of orders than he would have dared to hope for: test piloting experimental starships. It was the sort of assignment that usually went to pilots with years of experience under their belts, that every new-minted jet jockey aspired to and most never achieved. His presence had not only been accepted, but _requested._  Pilots with legendary careers spanning wars and decades, whose names were whispered with awe by his classmates, were calling  _him_  the future of Alliance aviation, a prodigy with both technical and practical skill almost unheard of in a recruit of his age.

And then, not ten minutes after arriving on Arcturus Station, he stumbled getting off the transport shuttle. The impact of his shin on the top stair shouldn't have been anything to write home about, enough force to bruise and hurt like hell, but anyone else would have cursed and shrugged it off. It had fractured his tibia in three places.

It was embarrassing. It was  _infuriating._

 _You got complacent,_  he thought viciously.  _You're the best pilot to come out of the academy in fifty years and you fucked it up two days after getting assigned. You just proved you're a giant liability. Hackett's gonna put you behind a desk and you get to spend the next four years of your contract planning_ other _pilots' flights while-_

The waiting room door hissed open, forcing Jeff out of his rapid descent into self-loathing. He looked up in time to see a skinny girl seat herself in one of the chairs opposite him. She cast him a brief, mildly curious glance before turning her attention to the book tucked under her arm.

Rubbing his eyes, Jeff took a deep breath and shifted in his chair. It wouldn't do any good to sit and wallow in his own misery. There was always the chance, the smallest chance, that this was a personal debrief with Hackett, since he had been too preoccupied with a trip to the infermary to attend the official one. 

I  _should have brought a book,_  he thought, pulling his hat down and closing his eyes. If he was getting force retired anyway, couldn't hurt to catch a short nap.

"You should have brought a book."

The voice startled him. He pushed the bill of his cap back up and found himself looking into the eyes- well,  _eye_ \- of the girl seated across from him.

"Excuse me?" he asked. He was never very socially adept.

She laughed a little. "One thing I've learned after my many visits to Hackett is that you  _always_  bring a book. The wait can be a little long."

Jeff wasn't entirely sure how to respond. He suspected that behind the black eye and the butterfly tape on her jaw, this girl was cute. Hell, _with_ the black eye and the butterfly tape, she was more than a little attractive. Pretty girls didn't generally talk to him, and when they _did_ it was with the same saccharine-drenched condescencion usually reserved for infants and small animals and other things too fragile to care for themselves. Then again, maybe his luck was changing. He'd broken his leg, sure, but maybe it was so he could be in this seat and meet this girl. Besides, years of television and movies had promised him one thing: girls loved fighter pilots. 

"Oh," he said, and shrugged. "Yeah. I guess."

She offered a slightly confused smile, and looked back down at her book.

 _Eloquent. Real ladies' man there, Jeff._ He fidgeted, picking at a stray thread on his pants, and furtively glanced back at the girl.

Her uniform, gray and green, insinuated she was a marine. The nametag over her right breast pocket read 'Shepard.' Judging by the chevrons on her shoulders, she was a baby officer. Impressive, since she didn't look very old; he was just barely nineteen and she looked about the same, give or take a year. Bright red hair was loosely bound at the back of her head, a few flyaways curling over her forehead and the back of her neck. It was obviously not her natural color, he could see her roots were dark, brown or black.

She was also a biotic, if he recalled correctly the meaning of the lightning bolts on the lapels of marine uniforms.

Suppressing a sigh Jeff settled back in his chair, crossing his arms. Whoever this marine was, she was definitely out of his league.

"You're a pilot."

Again, he was startled at her voice. 

"What?"  _Smooth._

"I sort of assumed, with the flight suit and the wings on your hat, you must be a pilot," she said. "Either that or you're in here for impersonating an Alliance pilot."

"No, I'm really a pilot," he replied.  _For now._

"So what do you fly?" She had closed her book and tucked it back under arm, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. For some reason she was genuinely interested in him.  _She doesn't know about the Vrolik's yet._

"Nothing, yet," he said. Probably nothing, ever. "I just finished flight school. Got here yesterday morning."

"Well, what are you  _going_  to fly, then?" She smiled, and Jeff wondered why he was compelled to open up to this girl. In the face of her bizarre charisma, he couldn't even muster his usual armor of wit and sarcasm.

"Uh… I'm going to test-fly experimental fighters," he said, nodding slowly and looking down at his hands.  _Or I'm going to fly a desk right into an early retirement._

"Don't sound so excited about it!" she laughed. "Test piloting sounds like an awesome job. And I hear the pay is _great_."

Jeff shrugged. "It is a pretty good assignment," he said, and inadvertently cast his eyes at his broken leg.

"Oh, I see," the girl said quietly. He furrowed his brow. "You know, I'd say with how clean it is, that cast is fresh. Meaning you busted your ass in some probably very stupid way before you even got a room in the barracks. And you think Hackett won't let you fly."

She had read him like a  _book._  All from one downward glance at his own leg, she had picked him apart. Jeff frowned at her.  _Who_ are  _you?_

"Something like that," he said flatly.

To his chagrin, she stood and moved to the chair directly next to his. "I bet you anything, you go in there and he tells you not to worry about it. After all, you don't need legs to fly," she said, and her smile was somehow both teasing and reassuring. "You just need wings. And if they put you here test-piloting fresh out of flight school, I'd say you definitely have a set."

Jeff looked into her one luminous, un-swollen green eye for a long moment.

"That is the corniest thing anyone's ever said to me," he said finally. "Ever."

The girl rolled her eyes and laughed, nudging him good-naturedly with her elbow. "I'm just trying to help, you tool. You looked really depressed there for a minute."

In spite of himself, Jeff smiled back at her. "Thanks, anyway."

"You know you're not bad looking at all when you actually smile," she said. "You should do that a little more often."

A flush began creeping up the back of his neck, and Jeff did his best to deflect the subject.

"How'd you get that magnificent shiner?" he asked.

She laughed, once, and absently touched the bruise along her jaw. "Oh, the usual. Some standard-issue asshole in the mess started picking on this poor kid for having a stutter. I told him to knock it off, poor guy can't help a stutter, right? And he called me a cunt and took a swing at me." She shrugged. "So I punched him in the throat."

"In the  _throat_?" Jeff blanched. He swallowed reflexively.

"It's an easily reachable, soft part of the body," she explained, tapping a finger against her own neck. "Usually disables someone who's not expecting it. This guy had a _really_ thick neck though, so he stayed up, and got a lucky shot in. Well, a lucky two shots, specifically"

He considered that for a moment. "So… they only sent you up here? Where's the other guy?"

A sheepish smile replaced the ferocious one, and she looked away at the far wall as though she were embarassed. "Infirmary," she said slowly. "I... might have broken his collar bone when I put him against the table by the back of the neck and made him apologize." Her eyes wandered back to meet his.

"You are the most terrifying woman I've ever met."

She wrinkled her nose at him. He noticed she had freckles. "Thank you. I try."

"You have a name, O defender of the stutterers?"

"Elizabeth," she said, chuckling. "I just go by Elle, though. What about you, Mr. Experimental Pilot?"

"Jeff Moreau, I presume?"

They both looked up. Captain Hackett stood in the door to his office, as stiff and well-put-together as his waiting room.

Awkwardly, Jeff got to his feet and retrieved the crutches from their position leaning against the wall behind him. Lungs clenching with anxiety, he approached the waiting captain.

"Please come in, Mr. Moreau." Hackett gestured into the room behind him, a surprisingly warm expression crossing his face as Jeff moved slowly past him. He turned a sharper gaze on the girl. "I'll talk to  _you_  in a minute, Shepard."

* * *

"Well?" Elle looked up expectantly, setting aside her book and leaning forward in her seat as Jeff reentered the waiting room.

He looked down at the floor, brow knitting. A quiet, surprised gasp escaped her, and she started to murmur an apology until Jeff cut her off with a broad grin. She had been right, and Hackett had just wanted to go over what Jeff had missed at the orientation the day before. In fact, the captain had barely even addressed the broken leg other than to ask how it was. If a cracked tibia or two hadn't gotten in Jeff's way, well, Hackett said he wasn't going to either.

"Still flying," he laughed.   

Shepard smiled broadly and shook her head. "You shit, you had me going there. Good! Hackett plays the hardass, but he's a good guy. I told you it would be fine."

"No, you gave me a cornball speech," he teased. She rolled her eyes and stood up.

"The next time I'll just let you sit in a puddle of your own misery," she said, punching him playfully in the shoulder.

 _Next time?_ Jeff marveled for a moment at the relationship he'd formed with this girl over fifteen minutes in a waiting room. He suspected that there was something about her easy smile and innate empathy that could convince people to do insane things for her.  _She could probably talk me into jumping the Omega 4._

"Hackett's ready for you." Jeff nodded towards the captain's office.

"Guess I better get in there, and hear the same speech." She put her hands on her hips and affected a deeper voice that was probably supposed to be Hackett. "You can't stand up for every downtrodden, unfortunate kid who thinks they want to be a marine. Let them fight their own battles. They'll toughen up or drop out on their own. You'll never finish OCS or qualify for N-school if you're too busy fighting for everyone else's career instead of your own.

"But I disagree," she continued, sticking her hands in her pockets. "I think we're marines so we  _can_  stand up for the downtrodden kids."

Jeff narrowed his eyes. "Cornball," he repeated.

Elle laughed again, and started for the door. She paused before running her hand over the green holo on the office entrance, and turned back to him.

"Maybe I'll see you around, Jeff Moreau."

A sweet smile, and she was gone.

"Yeah," he said to the closed door. A grin that he just _knew_ qualified as stupid and shit-eating pulled relentlessly at his cheeks. "Maybe I'll see you."


	2. Chapter 2

The extraction was flawless.

Six marines from the resort, seven from the town, all in under twenty minutes with no damage to the SSV _Pearl Harbor_ despite active pursuit by batarian fighters. They were safely out of the blast radius with another ten minutes to spare before the orbital bombardment of New Delphi commenced.

Retrieving half a squad of marines from two active warzones several miles apart in a frigate with kinetic barriers still down from atmospheric re-entry was, according to Alliance command, “a statistically impossible action-hero waste of time that will end in catastrophic failure.”

Well wouldn’t they just shit when they heard he’d pulled it off.

This was a Star of Terra, for sure.

Two days earlier, batarians had descended on the human colony of Elysium. The slavers had chosen to begin their assault with the affluent New Delphi Beach Resort and Spa, hoping to pull an easy harvest of wealthy, pliant human tourists to sell in the flesh markets of the Terminus Systems.

What the batarians had not counted on was the half of marine unit 304 that had arrived the evening before, having gotten an amazing package deal due to it being the tourism off-season and the hotel proper being mostly empty.

When a horde of slavers and bounty hunters had air-dropped into a mid-afternoon luau, they were greeted not with easily-bullied rich tourists, but thirteen very angry, highly-trained Alliance marines. Without much more than a few sidearms, annoyance over being forced to work while on leave, and the extremely creative use of pool noodles, six marines managed to contain the assault for close to forty-eight hours before Alliance reinforcements could arrive. The other seven escorted the civilian vacationers to the nearby town for evacuation by ground troops.

The 304 were bona-fide heroes.

But Joker had saved _them_. He took no small amount of pride in that. Tearing a frigate at speed through an up-scale resort on an extraction run had been without fail the most _awesome_ thing he had ever done. You didn’t even see shit like that in the movies. Without Joker those jarheads would have been dead.

Now, however, marines cluttered the deck, spilling out of the med bay and across the mess. A handful of medics moved among them, stitching and medi-gelling, while the soldiers crowed and congratulated themselves and generally acted like marines. That in itself wasn’t particularly odd on a working Alliance ship.

What _was_ strange was the way the marines were dressed. The soldiers sported an interesting combination of aloha shirts, flip flops, khaki shorts and at least one Speedo, interspersed among the bandages, bullet wounds, burns, bruises, broken bones and various assorted abrasions.

Well, fuck. Now he’d have to be friendly.

Safely in orbit, surrounded by half of the Fifth Fleet, Joker had relinquished the helm to a lesser pilot and gone in search of food, not considering that there would still be thirteen marines occupying the lower deck.

Sure, they’d probably cheer him at first. Then they’d watch him crutch his way across the mess and wonder if he was _actually_ the pilot, or just – and this was unthinkable – the _copilot._ It was hard for the marines Joker had met in the past to wrap their little jar-brains around the idea that ships didn’t have pedals, and his legs weren’t a problem when it came to flying.

Whatever, fuck ‘em, he was hungry and a bunch of ignorant assholes weren’t going to wreck his day. Not after the flying he had just done.

Surprisingly they didn’t even notice him shuffle across the deck. He contemplated whether that was worse than open disdain as he sat at the one unoccupied table and stashed his crutches under the bench. An ensign came around and dropped a tray of food in front of him.

As he ate, Joker scanned the surrounding crowd. The gathered marines all appeared to be men, which was struck him as odd. The lieutenant he had spoken to on the radio had definitely been female, and ferocious. She’d snarled over a backdrop of gunfire that she would “fucking gut him” if the _Pearl Harbor_ wasn’t on the golf green to get her squad exactly when he promised.

Then he spotted her, separated from the rest of her squad, locked in conversation with the ship’s captain.

It had been almost two years, but Lieutenant Shepard was definitely the girl from Hackett’s office, with the black eye and the freckles. The girl responsible for the words he told every commanding officer that questioned his abilities: You don’t need legs to fly.

Occasionally he wondered what happened to the marine who had inadvertently given him his best defense. Despite her half-promise to ‘maybe see him around,’ Joker had never encountered her again. For a while he cursed himself for not having the balls to get her contact information when he had the chance. Rarely, on particularly lonely nights in his rack, he would wonder if she remembered him.

Then he would console himself by convincing himself that, though she may have been sweet to him for fifteen minutes in a waiting room, that marine probably wouldn’t have stuck around long once she found out about the Vrolik’s.

But there she was. He could see both of her eyes, and her hair was a flat dark brown rather than shocking red, but it was definitely Elle. Her serious expression and rigid posture were a stark contrast to the way she was dressed, in ragged denim shorts and an obnoxious button-down Hawaiian shirt, open to reveal the bikini top underneath. The remains of what appeared to be a blood-splattered Blasto the Spectre beach towel were wrapped around her right thigh, the edges of a wide ragged gash peeking around it. Aviator-style sunglasses perched on her head.

If he hadn’t personally witnessed the warzone of the resort, Joker would have pegged her for an extra on the set of a particularly bad action vid.

Realizing he was staring, Joker looked hastily back down at what passed for dinner in the _Pearl Harbor_ mess as she started to turn away from the captain. After a moment he chanced a furtive glance from under the bill of his cap, only to find himself looking into a spectacular set of abdominal muscles.

“This doesn’t look like an experimental fighter to me.”

Elle Shepard slid into the chair opposite him. Joker became aware of the scent of gunsmoke, laced with the crackling-ozone smell of recently used biotics. And, bizarrely, a note of coconutty sunscreen.

“Because if I recall correctly, you were supposed to be a test pilot.”

“That got boring after about eight months,” he said, shrugging, playing it cool. He hoped to whatever god would listen that his voice didn’t crack with the surprise that she did, in fact, remember him.

“Boring?” she said, raising her eyebrows dubiously.

“Sure, in a prototype you’re more likely to die in a glorious blaze of fire and plasma. But if I’m going down in a ship I want it to involve some heroics and at least local news coverage, not a mis-calibrated FTL drive. Besides,” he added, crossing his arms and leaning back smugly, “It’s unfair to waste my considerable talent on just one station. I need to spread it around the Alliance, make sure everyone gets a taste.”

Elle laughed and shook her head. “Well, I’m glad you deigned to share your prodigious skills with the rest of us mortals, then. We’d be a stain on a fancy carpet if you didn’t come when you did.”

“Pretty sure it’s a major faux-pas to die on the _fancy_ carpets. You should at least have the courtesy to bleed out on the tile with the rest of the plebes,” Joker replied in mock seriousness. “They’ll never let you back in that hotel now.”

“Glad you can find the humor in it,” she snorted, but she was laughing too. The marine reached back to pull her hair out of its messy topknot, and hissed as the singed collar of her shirt grazed the painful-looking burn that crept up the right side of her neck and over her collar bone.

“Should I get Chakwas?” he asked, no longer feigning his concern. “She’s the best doc in the Alliance, she’ll patch you up quick.”

“Nah.” Elle shook her head, and prodded the edges of the burn gingerly. “I can see the medics later. My squad’s got worse holes punched in it than I do.”

As though illustrating her point, across the room there was a curse and the sickening grind of a joint being pushed back into place.

“See? I’ll make it another couple hours. Hungry as fuck, though.”

With that she reached across the table and plucked a baby carrot off Joker’s tray, popping it into her mouth.

“Why sure, you’re welcome to my hard-earned dinner,” Joker said, waving a hand over the tray as though it were a game show prize.

“Hard earned? I just spent two days saving an entire planet from certain firey death,” she scoffed, picking up another carrot. “Besides,” she added, pointing the vegetable accusingly at him, “Friends don’t let friends starve.”

 _Friends?_ he thought. _We talked for like fifteen minutes, once, two years ago._

He decided, though, that he might actually like being friends with her.

“Fine,” he said, and nudged the tray a little closer to her. “I warn you though, mess sergeant on this boat can’t cook for shit.”

“I heard that, Joker,” snapped someone behind them, whom Elle assumed to be the offending mess sergeant.

“Joker, huh?” she inquired, putting her chin in her hand. “When’d you pick up that name?”

He shrugged. “Technically they’ve been calling me that since flight school.”

“Oh?” She liberated his fork from his hand, and stabbed at a piece of grayish matter masquerading as hamburger steak. “Last time I saw you, you seemed awful serious to earn a name like Joker.”

He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Oh I get it. Clever.”

“I had an instructor who told me I didn’t smile enough, started calling me that. I was too busy to screw around though, you know? I needed to work twice as hard for anyone to take me seriously.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, looking up from his dinner.

 _Shit_ , he cursed himself. _Shit, shit, shitty shit. You’re making progress with a lady and now you have to tell her about your stupid bones._

“I, ah…” Joker paused, and pressed the thumb and forefinger of one hand into his eyes. “I have this condition, called Vrolik’s Syndrome. The bones in my legs are basically hollow, if I’m not careful they’ll break without much effort.”

He lowered his hand, chancing a look back at her. Elle’s expression was inscrutable, and Joker could only assume that meant she was finding a way to escape the conversation quickly. Or, worse, she was pitying him.

“That’s rough,” she said softly.

“It doesn’t stop me from being the best goddamn pilot in the fleet,” he said quickly, falling habitually back on defensiveness before she could say something condescendingly ‘uplifting.’ “You don’t need legs to fly.”

For a moment she stared at him, then burst into laughter. She had seemed so nice, and now she was laughing at him, literally laughing in his face, no shame whatsoever.

“What?” he asked sourly. “Yeah, laugh it up at the crippled pilot.”

“No, no,” she said, blanching, putting a hand over her mouth and finally finding the courtesy to look abashed. She seemed to be doing her best to stifle her mirth. “Sorry,” she repeated, waving her other hand at him. “It’s just… you don’t need legs to fly? You told me that was the cheesiest thing anyone’s ever said to you!”

“Well, it was,” he grumbled. “But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“It is true,” she agreed, and the smile she offered him was kind. Joker felt a little bad about snapping at her.

“Sorry,” he huffed. “Most people get weird when I tell them about it.”

“Well I don’t give a shit,” she said.

“Hey, fuck you!”

“No, sorry, that came out wrong,” she amended quickly. “I mean, I don’t think that matters at all. I'm sorry it's something you have to live with, but you can clearly fly this tin can better than most, and even if you’re a little bit of an asshole, I still like you.”

“Thanks, I guess.” He hoped he wasn’t blushing. He felt like he was blushing.

“Lieutenant Shepard!” Elle turned to look over her shoulder, saw the ship’s captain beckoning her. “Admiral Hackett's on the ling, and he wants to talk to you.”

She looked back at Joker, crossing her eyes. “Duty calls,” she said.

“Good to see you again,” Joker said, watching her stand.

“Yeah,” she agreed, and then leaned forward. Her hand brushed his chest as she pulled a pen out of the breast pocket of his flight suit, and Joker found himself silently thanking god that he worked hard to keep at least his upper body strong.

“Here,” Elle said, scribbling something quickly on a napkin and sliding it to him along with the pilfered pen and a wink. “Keep in touch this time, Jeff Moreau.”

As Elle made her way across the room, Joker glanced down at the napkin. On it, in a crooked script, was written an extranet mail address and a phone number.

He wasted no time typing it into his omni-tool.


	3. Chapter 3

Shepard stepped out of the cab and pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, flashed a dazzling smile. As she stepped onto the curb and approached, she spread her hands and asked, “Well? What do you think?”

 What he should have said, what he _meant_ to say, was “You look amazing!” or “What a lovely color,” or even just an easy “Not bad.”

Instead, what burst forth from the depths of his poor impulse control was probably the worst opening line in the history of all conversation. A pre-emptive wince pulled at his shoulders before he even finished speaking. Hopefully she wouldn’t get any blood on his whites.

“What happened to your _face_?”

“Asari commandos carry knives,” she said flatly, dropping her hands to her hips. The scar started just to the left of her nose, slashed through the freckles on the bridge and traveled the width of her right cheek, all the way to her ear. “But I was talking about the dress, ass.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s fine too I guess,” Joker said, and reached out to poke her cheek. “It’s still pink in the middle! How long ago did that happen?”

Shepard slapped his hand away. “About six weeks.”

“Damn,” Joker breathed. “Hey, you look like a real marine now!”

She pushed the brim of his hat over his eyes.

“That’s not acceptable cover anywhere but on an actual vessel, Lieutenant,” she said. “And definitely not part of any dress uniform I’ve ever seen.”

“What, you going to call my CO about it? Because he’s not—hey!” He grasped for his hat as she snatched it off his head.

“Of course not,” she said, placing a hand against his chest and holding the cap well out of his unsteady reach, “I am, however, going to save you the humiliation of looking like a total goof in your whites with an ancient baseball cap.”

“Unfair,” he griped. “It’s probably even less acceptable to have no cover at _all_ , you know.”

Shepard stuffed the offending cap into her little handbag. “We’re going to be inside most of the time anyway, no one will notice,” she said, and frowned at Joker’s head. He sputtered as she suddenly ran her hands roughly back-and-forth over his hat-flattened hair. Once it was thoroughly disheveled, she then attempted to smooth it back down.

Finally Shepard stepped back, gave him a critical look. “You should have shaved. Presentable, though.”

“Gee, thanks, mom _._ I’ve got like six days of leave left after this, you couldn’t _pay_ me to take a razor to this.” He gestured to the week’s worth of stubble currently gracing his jawline, and frowned at her. “Where’s your uniform, anyway?”

“It’s not _my_ cousin getting married,” she shrugged. “Besides, the opportunity to dress up and spend a stupid amount of money getting my hair done rarely arises. Can’t skip a chance to show off all this.”        

Joker’s eyes followed Shepard’s hand as she swept it along the length of her torso, taking the opportunity to _actually_ look at Shepard's ensemble. Her hair was pinned back over her right ear, the majority of her ashy brown locks spilling over her opposite shoulder in loose waves. The dress was floor-length, green, made of some airy material he was unfamiliar with; the cut was stunning, clinging in the right places and flowing in others. It left her shoulders bare, and displayed the colorful spray of peonies tattooed along the well-defined muscles of her left arm and shoulder... as well as more cleavage than Joker even knew Shepard possessed, let alone had ever seen before. He looked very pointedly at her face, his palm going sweaty against the silver head of his cane.

“Besides,” she added, “Maybe this way no one will recognize me.”

“Don’t bet on it.” 

* * *

Really, it had only been a matter of time. At least a third of the guests were active duty Alliance, and Elle was more than a little famous among her fellow soldiers. Not twenty minutes into the reception, just as Shepard was gleefully settling in to her prime rib, a man from the table next to theirs—a cousin from the Moreau side of the family, if Joker recalled correctly—suddenly exclaimed, “Holy shit, I know why I recognize you!”

Joker ceased feeling all guilt when the bride, herself an active duty marine, sat down at their table to get a selfie with the Hero of Elysium. Until that point something akin to remorse had tugged at him, if for no other reason than the fact that he had inadvertently sidetracked the entire reception with his choice of date. The only one he felt kind of bad for was Shepard, though to her credit she was retelling the story of Elysium for at least the eighth time with the same good-natured abandon as she had the first. Of course, it probably didn’t hurt that there was a steady stream of alcohol flowing into her from the nearby open bar.

She was nearly done with yet another retelling—graciously including Joker’s daring extraction at the end of it, which was more than could be said for most media outlets—when her omnitool pinged.

“Sorry, I need to take this,” she said, standing rather suddenly. She glanced almost pointedly at Joker, and added, “It’s David.”

As she turned and, slightly unsteadily, started for the door, the latest cousin whom Shepard had been speaking with—Tom—leaned across the now-empty chair between them.

“Who’s David?”  he asked.

“Uh… Anderson, I think,” Joker said, sitting back in his chair to watch Shepard navigate the sea of tuxedos and dress uniforms before disappearing through the large, glass double doors on the opposite side of the dance floor. _What was that look?_

“Ander… _David Anderson_?” Tom said, jaw literally falling open. “Your girlfriend is _fucking awesome_ , dude.”

Before Joker could respond, the cousin stood and wandered off, apparently no longer interested in the conversation without Shepard. He shook his head and glanced back at his mostly empty plate, debating whether or not he wanted to go get more cake. Most of the guests had progressed to dancing, so there wouldn’t even be a line—

“You rebound _fast_.”

He turned to find his younger sister, Hilary, dropping into the chair next to his.

“What?” he asked, mildly confused.

“I thought your last girlfriend just dumped you, like, last week,” she said, as though that explained everything.

“Yeah, she did, thanks for bringing that up,” he said tightly. Just the previous week, his now-ex-girlfriend had called and informed him she was leaving him for a turian and moving to the Citadel. “I don’t see what it has to do with anything.”

“It’s been, like, what, _six days_ and you’ve got a new girlfriend already! I didn’t know you were such a ladies’ man,” she said.

Joker laughed in her face. “Shepard? Really? Not even close, kiddo,” he managed through his mirth.

“No way, what, she just dropped everything and flew across the galaxy to come to this wedding for funsies?” she asked, disbelieving.

“She was on Earth anyway,” he said. “No big deal.”

His sister rolled her eyes and frowned at him. “Well if she’s not your girlfriend, she totally could be. I know you like her.”

“Of course I like her—”

“No, Jeff, you _like_ her like her. It’s so obvious,” she scoffed.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “No,” he said simply.

“Really? Because you talk about her like _all_ the time, even when you were still with what’s-her-name. And you’re always posting pictures of you guys together doing stuff on your Facepage, and you said she sleeps on your sofa whenever she’s passing through Arcturus. And you even ironed your whites. Like, hello, you’re one hundred percent in love with her,” she explained. “And you totally still have your arm over her chair even though she walked out like ten minutes ago.”

Joker snatched the offending arm away from where it was draped over the backrest of the empty seat to his right, and mumbled something about stretching his muscles. “Ironing doesn’t meant shit. And besides, friends hang out, too, no subtext,” he said, though the protest sounded lame even in his own ears. “I am constantly bombarded by photos of you and your friends at the mall.”

“Not even the same thing,” she said. “And besides she’s totally into you, too.”

That took him physically aback. “No, I don’t… I doubt it,” he stammered, and then quickly recovered, taking a drink of water. “You’re like twelve, what would you even know about it?”

“One: I’m fifteen, douche, and two: no one just wears Matriarch Venezta spring collection to a rando wedding in Louisiana when she isn’t trying to make an impression,” Hilary said, clearly annoyed that she had to continue to break it down. “That dress is like eleven hundred creds, easy.”

He promptly snorted the water right back into the glass. “What the fu… that’s a rent check!”

“Yeah, and if she didn’t drop at least three hundred on that ombre I’ll be shocked, because her hair looks amazing,” his sister continued. “I mean that’s… really something.”

She said something else, possibly something related to shoes, but Joker had at that point thoroughly tuned her out. He was busy staring out the door, wondering whether his sister could possibly be right. It was easy enough to believe she’d spent that much money on her outfit, she really did look _stunning_ … Then again, she had reenlisted not that long ago, and therefore gotten a not-insubstantial bonus check. And she’d said herself she rarely got to dress up, and enjoyed any chance to, however small.

That was absolutely it, he convinced himself. She had both opportunity and the funds to burn, and she was never one to take half measures. There was no subtext to it. The end.

Besides, Elle Shepard was the take-no-prisoners sort of impulsive that, if she was really all that interested in him, she would have made a move a long time ago. She wasn’t all that big on hints.

“…Dude. Are you even listening?” Hilary’s pointed question pierced his spiral of rationalization.

“No,” he said honestly.

“Ugh,” she grumbled, but she was smiling. “I was just saying, you should get on that before someone else does.”

“Really? _Get on that_? Who taught you to talk like that?”

“You did,” she laughed. “Now I am going to go dance with that super cute groomsman. Bye!”

Thoroughly confused, Joker watched his sister bounce away, then glanced back to the glass doors through which Shepard had vanished.

So what she had flown from Singapore to Louisiana at the last minute? It was just so he wouldn’t be _that_ guy at a wedding; the guy who was plus one on the RSVP but wound up with an empty seat to his left at the ceremony. And maybe she was prone to saying the corniest shit to make him feel better. And maybe she unironically loved 20 th century scifi movies, and swapped shitty, pulpy mystery novels with him before long underways, and he was acutely aware of just how much she hated cherry flavored pastries, and they made every chance they could to hang out together.

Yeah, Shepard was certainly something. She was a lot of somethings. A lot of really _awesome_ somethings. Maybe…

No. Nope. Hilary read way too many stereotype YA novels, because that was some romantic comedy men-and-women-can’t-be-just-friends bullshit. He was twenty goddamn seven years old, he wasn’t going to buy into it just because he was a little drunk and maybe his fifteen year old sister had made a semi-valid point.

Shepard would laugh if he told her what his sister had suggested.

That’s what he was going to do. He was going to march out there right now and tell her and laugh about what a ludicrous idea it was. She’d been gone for at least half an hour, her phone call had to be over.

The combination of mild drunkenness and attempting to balance on a single cane—really, what the _hell_ was he thinking with that thing?—made for a slow trip, but he still found himself pausing at the door. There were a handful of picnic tables in the grassy expanse behind the reception hall, illuminated by the soft light of paper lanterns and fairy lights hanging in the trees.

 _And the rom-com_ _stereotype continues_ , he thought when he spotted Shepard. She was seated on one of the picnic tables, her feet on the bench, looking up at the sky. Her back was to him, and what looked suspiciously like her shoes were sitting on the table next to her. If this really _was_ a romance movie, this would be the part when he (the dashing hero) went over and confessed his secret love, and she said she loved him too and he kissed her.

Those vids were so silly.

He slid across the table next to her, pressing his shoulder into hers and leering down at her. “Ooh, girl, you come here often?”

“Slick,” she said, laughing. A surprisingly tall cocktail was in her hand. It had a wedge of pineapple skewered on a little pink umbrella balanced on the rim, and she tilted it towards him. “I fucking love your family.”

“Oh yeah?” he said, taking the offered drink and sipping at it. A maitai, more fruit juice than rum, but it would probably fuck you right up. “Why’s that?”

“Open bar,” she replied, taking the drink back. “And I almost never had to get up and get my own drink! Totally worth having to retell the Elysium story a thousand times.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, blanching. “I didn’t stop to think that bringing a genuine war-hero to the country mouse wedding might cause a bit of a flap.”

“I don’t mind, really.” Shepard shrugged. “It’s not a bad memory. Pretty much everyone made it out alive, I got a Star of Terra, and the good guys won.”

“Can’t argue with that, really,” Joker said.

They fell silent for a while, Joker picking at a possibly-imagine spot on the knee of his whites and Shepard staring up at the sky

“Okay, I’m sorry, but this has been bugging the shit out of me all night,” Shepard said suddenly, reaching towards the vicinity of his neck.

“Whoa, okay, sorry I made you dress up, you don’t have to choke me!” Joker exclaimed, batting at her hands.

“No, you tool, I mean your ribbons,” she said exasperatedly, swatting his hand away. She slipped a finger under the ribbons on his breast, and tilted them to better catch the light. "For someone who apparently comes from such a huge military family, I'd expect you to actually know how to order these things."

“Alright, then,” Joker assented, more as a courtesy than anything else. She was already busily re-ordering the ribbons, sliding them off the mount with her thumb and deftly replacing them. "And it's not that I don't know how. I do. I just don't wear them often enough to re-do the whole thing every time I get a 'good job wiping your ass today' ribbon."

 Joker glanced down at her as she worked. Even with the new facial scar, she was kind of pretty. There was a dusting of faint freckles across her nose and the tops of her cheeks, dark against her otherwise pale skin. He had never paid much attention to her shoulders before, but now he could see they were freckled too. She stuck her tongue out a little when she concentrated.

If he was going to be honest, she was more than just ‘kind of pretty.’

She was fucking hot.

“Something I can help you with?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. She had a five year distinguished service ribbon in the corner of her mouth, and had apparently noticed him staring at her.

“You look nice,” he admitted, though if he was going to be honest, she looked _amazing_.

She nodded. “Damn right,” she said. She pushed the final medal into place, and sat back. “Two hundred bucks for this cut and color.”

His jaw dropped, and he glanced at her scalp. Normally her hair was a uniform, mostly unremarkable dark brown, and now it faded into a honey color towards the ends. In fairness, it was a really good look. _Two hundred_ credits, though. Hilary had been very nearly right about that. Meant she was probably right about the dress too. Which meant…

“That's fucking insane, Elle,” he said.

“Hey, don't you judge me. I told you I never get to dress up like this.”

“Can I have my hat back, yet?”

“It’s still not regulation cover for that uniform,” she said, lifting her palms in mock helplessness. “As a superior officer, I just can’t let you violate the sanctity of the dress codes.”

“Which is worse, _superior officer_ ,” he asked, “Non-regulation cover, or _no_ cover while we’re outside?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, contemplating. “Touche, my friend,” she said, and with a snorting laugh she pressed the now mostly-empty glass into his hand and began to root in her purse.  Joker wondered how she could have lost something like a hat in such a tiny bag.

“Here,” she said, producing the cap and presenting it to him with a flourish. The light fell across her at just the right angle as she turned, and he saw that, yes, the tops of her breasts were as freckled as her shoulders.

“Thanks.” He wasted no time placing it back on his head. It was so weird, not wearing a hat. It was so weird having to distract himself from… _impure_ thoughts of Shepard, of all people.

 “So, uh, what did Anderson want?” he asked.

“Well, I have some…news,” she said slowly, and turned to face him. She bit her lip in barely contained excitement.

“What kind of news?” he asked,

“Big news. Are you sitting down?”

He glanced down at the picnic table to be sure they were still sitting on it, then narrowed his eyes at her. “Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re ready? Because it’s huge,” she said, rubbing her hands together.

“Ok, one: phrasing. And two: spit it out already!” he exclaimed.

“Okay, okay.” She paused, and took a deep breath. Then her face split into a huge grin, and she put her hands on his shoulders. “Guess who the XO and chief flight lieutenant of the Normandy project are?”

He stared at her dumbly. She didn’t mean…

“ _We are_.” She pointed back and forth between them.

The squealing noise that Joker made would have embarrassed him if he hadn’t been so busy leaping to his feet and doing an equally embarrassing, air-punching little dance.

Alcohol-and-excitement fueled embarrassing dances usually ended in embarrassing broken bones, and by the time he realized he had jumped up without the aid of crutch or cane, Joker was swaying unsteadily. Shepard slid easily to her feet and caught his arm before he went down.

Before he realized what he was doing, he was pulling her into a tight hug. She laughed, and her arms slipped around his neck. They stood together just long enough for him to realize she smelled of lavender and biotics. When they finally released one another, she kept a grip on his upper arms.

“I forget how tall you are sometimes,” she said softly, looking up at him. Without her heels on, and with him actually standing up straight, Shepard was a little more than a head shorter than him.

“Chronic slouch. The real reason I need the crutches,” he replied. For some reason his voice quavered.

Shit. Rom-com stereotype time. Something about the paper-lantern light and her hands on his arms and her small smile made him _really_ want to bend down and kiss her.

“So are we breaking fraternization regs, if you’re my commanding officer now?” he asked, standard flippancy shattering whatever sweet-awkward moment they were having. She rolled her eyes, and leaned over to pick up his cane. She pressed it into his hand and released his arm, taking a small step back. Her expression was inscrutable, but her smile never faltered. When she turned back to the table, Joker squeezed his eyes shut and cursed himself.

God, he was terrible with girls.

Plucking her little handbag off the table, Shepard tucked it under her arm and hooked her fingers into the tops of her shoes, carrying them at her side. She walked barefoot back to him, and slipped her arm into his.

“I don’t think going to a wedding breaks any regs. And technically I’m not your CO for another six weeks,” she said as they started back to the party. “But I’m excited we get to work together, finally.”

“Yeah,” he said, and glanced sidelong at her. Joker decided that whatever had just passed between them was a combination of booze and enthusiasm. “We are going to make a _badass_ team.”


End file.
